The Boys are off for now. Movie of Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson’s hyper violent Comic books is scrapped by Columbia...

IT’s hard not to fall in love with a comic book series that has one of its main characters drawn like Simon Pegg and has a conversation that goes...

“C.I.A.? What, the Americans? ... But they’re cunts.”

“Well Yeah they are. But...they’re the ones with the resources. ... I mean what else am I gonna do, use me Billion Dollar inheritance an’ operate out of a cave?”

The Boys is definitely not one of those comic books or (if you read it in the more popular collected forms of the age) Graphic novels tha’s for children Arms and faces get ripped of, with Darick Robertson illustrating the ‘gore quite ....er...beautifully(?)  The premise is that the super pwered being of the world are need of control; good, bad or inbetween the Watchmen need watching...

Synopsis...

“Billy Butcher, Wee Hughie, Mother’s Milk, he Frenchman and The Female are The Boys: a C.I.A. backed team of very dangerous people, each one dedicated to the struggle against the most dangerous people, each one dedicated to the struggle against the most dangerous force  Earth – superpower. Some superheroes have to be controlled. And some of them – Sometimes – have to be taken out of the picture.”

Wee  Hughie &  Simon Pegg - or Pegg & Hughie?

It continues to impress (It has been nominated annually for awards) and with an international cast of characters, and a genuinely wicked sense of humour ,it does feel like a story perfectly suited to a series of films. (Although a Walking Dead level TV show would also work for the ‘long form’.  (Surely Simpon Pegg would have to play Wee Hughie, the character who was based on Pegg without his knowledge; as Samuel L Jackson has taken Ultimate Nick Fury to the big screen in the Marvel Studios films (In his case he had given his permission for his likeness and “personality traits”  to be used.)

The bad news is that the film is now looking for a new studio as Columbia Pictures have now dropped the film. Producers Neal H. Moritz (I Am Legend, Fast 5) and Jason Netter (Wolverine & The X-Men, Wanted) are on the hunt...